The invention relates generally to electrical device connectors. More particularly, the invention relates to a rail mounting apparatus for mounting an electrical device to a rail.
Various types of rail connectors have been created for securing electrical devices to a rail such as a DIN rail or top hat rail. The rails typically include an elongated conductive channel member having side edge flanges to which rail connectors can engage/disengage quickly. Current rail connectors exhibit instability relative to larger, heavier devices, which may rock or vibrate off the rail. Past solutions to this problem required screws to mount the device to the back panel, but this technique negates the quick connect/disconnect nature of the rail. Another problem is the inadequate grounding of the component, which usually requires additional hardware to solve. The requirement that the rail electronic device must be of a certain size/type to be rail-mounted (i.e., a particular relay) also poses a challenge. Current designs that attempt to address the above-described problems fail are costly. In particular, a low cost design usually requires minimization of the number of parts, and the amount of material used. However, a majority of current designs used for clamping a component to a rail include complex arrangements including, for example, expensive bendable or spring-tensioned clips.